1. The soldiers are so brave that they always conquer the enemy.
2. The danger is so great that no ships can be saved.
3. So great a storm had arisen that all the sailors were terrified.
4. He escaped so quickly that no one could catch him.

I wondered why you put the subj. impf. in the last sentence. It is the real type of consecutives, thus the subj. does not follow the consecutio temporum, ie the usage should be "absolutum". Since the predicate is perfective ("He escaped") I would suggest tempus perfectum rather than tempus imperfectum in consecutive sentence.

P.S. I've totaly overlooked the past perfect in the third sentence, and so I faild to use the plusquamperfectum.

Helen of Troy wrote:I wondered why you put the subj. impf. in the last sentence. It is the real type of consecutives, thus the subj. does not follow the consecutio temporum, ie the usage should be "absolutum". Since the predicate is perfective ("He escaped") I would suggest tempus perfectum rather than tempus imperfectum in consecutive sentence.

P.S. I've totaly overlooked the past perfect in the third sentence, and so I faild to use the plusquamperfectum.

I used the answer key for North & Hillard, so I cannot explain their reasoning for them, but the solution does appear correct to me. According to the sequence of tenses here, simple past perfect in the main clause is followed by imperfect in the subjunctive clause (with action afterwards). You can also put the subjunctive clause into the present if you regard the main clause as being relative to the current time (i.e. "he has escaped..."), but you are saying that it should be in the perfect subjunctive? This can only be possible when you are talking about a past event in relation to a present time, but this sentence is future in relation to past.

Not quite fair. Helen's point is that the sequence of tenses rules do not strictly apply in consecutive clauses, one is free to select tenses that seem best to fit the meaning. She is (except, I think, for Caesar) right.

On the other hand one suspects that N&H might generally prefer to follow strict sequence so as not to confuse their 13 year-old learners.

Ulpianus wrote:Not quite fair. Helen's point is that the sequence of tenses rules do not strictly apply in consecutive clauses, one is free to select tenses that seem best to fit the meaning. She is (except, I think, for Caesar) right.

On the other hand one suspects that N&H might generally prefer to follow strict sequence so as not to confuse their 13 year-old learners.

Ulpianus got right my rather unusual melange of English and Latin terminology of grammar.

I'm not suggesting the perfect subjunctive in the main clause, but in consecutive.

My point was: since the selection of tense is free from the rules of consecutio temporum (and it is, according to grammar), usage of tempus imperfectum here is not quite right. Imperfect refers to an action that lasted in the past, action that is "IMperfectum" not "perfectum", thus it is similar to Greek imperfect tense, Italian imperfetto, and, if you like, to English past continuous tenses. "He escaped" or "He's escaped", doesn't metter, is an action which was terminated in one moment. We could say, for example, that "he was escaping" for a certain period till he reached some safety zone, but in that very moment when he started to run - "he escaped". So, "effugit" is more then right. But then, the tense that comes in consecutive clause should also be perfect, only this time in subjunctive.

I might be wrong of course, for I couldn't possibly be 100% sure of the English verb system and usage of tenses.

Strange as it may now seem to us, the early parts of N&H were intended for use in the "early forms", by which I understand the early forms of public school, i.e. in their day 13 year olds or so. To that extent, they properly tend to emphasize drill and rules over explanation and sophistication, which may well have led them to observe sequence of tenses rather strictly even when it actually does not need to be strictly observed, and generally (especially in these early sections) to keep things simple.

Standard in Latin were much higher in those days --- for the few who got that sort of education, and at least with respect to those things they studied. Nowadays, English->Latin is little studied (even at A-level), and linguistic standards are probably lower. This may or may not be compensated by (a) wider education generally, (b) supposedly better literary and historical appreciation in Latin, (c) more subjects at A-level. The whole of N&H is designed for people below the sixth form (i.e., for non-English readers of this, up to 16). If you were doing Latin at all you would have started it at around 8, and probably started Greek too either then or shortly afterwards. But, of course, only a very few got the chance to do that at all.

A similar trend is apparent in some other subjects (e.g. maths), I believe. When my father did O level in the 1950s, O level maths included calculus, O level Latin included English->Latin translation and unseen translation at about the level of Caesar (possibly very slightly simplified). A-level latin certainly required substantial Latin prose composition and you were expected, if ready for university Latin, to be able to make a fair stab at Latin verse composition too. I'm not sure that is required even of degree-level students now. And by the time I left university (1991) the scientists were complaining that undergraduates need remedial maths.

One can either be elitist and depressed, or populist and delighted, or stoical and resigned.

And maths nowadays at GCSE is insanely easy. It's not even funny. I always make silly mistakes in the exams because I'm not fully awake.
Remedial maths I would probably need that not for want of ability but education.

In the HCP Prose Composition available on this site, they have sample past compositions from Yale etc. They are quite substantial.

Latin verse composition is not thát hard, really. I've had Latin from first grade to sixth in high school, and I studied it briefly at a university in Amsterdam. Although I'm quite capable of prose composition I've not been as actively involved in composing prose as in composing verses. It's very important to know the grammar and all of your options. If I need a word I search for in on the internet, if I need to know if a part of a word is long or short I can just try and seek for it in Ovids poetry, for example. Many dictionaries indicate that too, nowadays.